For A Love I Thought I Had
by Grand Phoenix
Summary: Maybe I never did. But I had it once, long ago, and I let it go. I want it back. (Please come back.) [Lor'themar, Neri, and Oculeth, at Newhome and Silvermoon][BfA era, pre-Azshara's Eternal Palace][CW for mentions of suicide]


**Notes1:** I have many, many feelings regarding the community's perception toward _Battle for Azeroth_, as well as the community itself. So much so I don't believe there is enough space on AO3 [and on ] to put down all my thoughts and impressions before it becomes a fanfic in and of itself.

This started as a very, _very_ short drabble of Lor'themar being buzzed and having a discussion with Neri about the Horde. However, as is tradition, the muse wanted him to fly off his rocker, spout memes, and suffer from a terrible hangover afterwards, all the while having a metafictional heart-to-heart with Oculeth about the future and morality of the Horde and its Warchiefs (outside of Garrosh's Iron Horde, I have never and still do not consider the Horde the 'evil faction', although the community insists I should see them as nothing more than Saturday morning cartoon villains, which...well, always struck me as odd, because _Warcraft_ is made in the _vein_ of comic book ham and cheese).

So off his gourd Lor'themar went. What started out as a dark comedy observing the Horde's metamorphoses through a lens eventually became an analysis on not only that but also in regards to the community's reception (or, if I am to be frank, when I speak of 'community' I speak of the folk at r/wow and MMO-Champion, which I lurk) toward the game itself, ranging from the current expansion's storyline beats, Sylvanas and the mantle of Warchief, Activision-Blizzard and storywriters in general, and even myself (Neri represents the Idealist and a very light grey of the Pragmatist, and is as close to being my personal stand-in in regards to how she is viewing the Horde side-by-side with what she hears about Sylvanas, whereas Lor'themar is a mish-mash of several shades of vitriol and gloom the community displays, as well as taking inspiration from some of my father's more eccentric phrases when he's in his dark moods, i.e. the mentions of bears and trust; and whereas Lor'themar is the Determined Defeatist, Oculeth represents the Anti-Nihilist).

I considered doing a longer write-up of the story's conception and my thought process behind it, but I think this does a decent job scratching at the surface of what goes on in my head when I take a peek at the forums, the Twitter threads, the Tumblr posts and wonder if everyone is blowing every little thing that comes out of WoW completely out of proportion...or if I should not feel the way I do and simply join them because it's the impression I get that it's expected of anyone that is part of the community to do so.

* * *

It should be a testament as to how utterly, terribly _wasted_ Lor'themar is (has always been, but no one outside of his immediate circle needs to know that) when he feels himself rock back and forth, back and forth from where he's all but crunched up in a fetal position—forehead, please meet knees—on the log around the bonfire. It's a gentle gesture, not too rough; if it was any harder he's not sure what would've happened. He can't stand sickness. Seeing people upchuck their own digestive acid is enough to join in on the fun.

"—themar! Hey, Lor'themar!"

He blinks blearily, picks his head up and looks behind him, the beginnings of a headache escalating to a consistent, nuisance thump right at the back of his skull.

It's Neri, moving her webbed hand away from his shoulder. "Yo! Look at you! You're hitting the sauce awful early, you know that?"

Lor'themar gives her a shrug. (Something—Oculeth will tell him the next day, in his private quarters in Silvermoon City, puking his intestines into a bucket that keeps getting put through a back-to-back wash-rinse-dry cycle from a state of the art scrubber unit, and what might've been a ten gallon bottle of Winterspring water being dumped right on the opposing bedside that isn't being stained by said digestive acid—that he swayed. A very small sway that, Oculeth reiterates, would've knocked the Regent-Lord over if he put just an iota more strength into it.) "I got thirsty," he says.

Neri stares at him. "Dude. We have water in the back of the cave for that."

"'S never too early for liquor."

"It's past dawn, sir."

"I gotta lot of thinking on my mind."

"Overthinking isn't good for you. You'll work yourself into a tizzy and give yourself...well." She gestures at him.

"'M fine, Neri. I just need to sort things out."

"With liquor."

"Yes. With liquor." He waves a hand through the air with the languid grace of a Barrens kodo. "Thalyssra's in charge today. She knows the run of this place."

"Ten thousand years is a long time to be away from home."

"She'll remember. Some memories may go but time...time lasts forever." He stares down into the depths of his mug. He can't remember for the life of him what kind of liquor it is—he just knows it's stamped with Orgrimmar's sigil and reeked strongly of radishes—but he needed something to nip on, get his thoughts in order, and decided, at that time, to say piss on the wind it was either this or drink the bottled water nicked from Tiragarde that tasted like hard-boiled egg. He takes a sip, smacks his lips. "Yup!" He proclaims loudly. He drinks some more. Not bad. "Where is she again?"

"Somewhere in Zin-Azshari, I think?" Neri says. Pauses a beat, nods. "Yeah. Yeah, she's at Zin-Azshari with Vim and the Speaker."

He nods. There's a part of him that finds it endearingly funny how Neri's eyes follow him: up and down, up and down, up and down, like a yo-yo. He cracks a smile. "That's good. She's got a good head on her shoulders, that Thalyssra. Always one step ahead."

"Lor, you sent them there. You said you wanted to find something to counter Azshara's magic for when we assault the palace."

"Did I now?"

"Yeah.

"Huh."

"Yeah. You're, uh. You're still in charge."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Oculeth's tryin' to crack open one of Mardivas's runelocked chests the scouts found nearby up the hill, and Atolia's making breakfast. It's fathom ray eggs today with red snapper rolls. She's packing them in with lots of fruits and those collard greens you guys have."

"Oh." He grumbles, and peers into the mug again. "Wonderful. I don't want any."

"You should at least get something in your stomach, man. Don't people say it helps offset the drunkenness?"

"Hell if I know."

"Well, either way, you should eat. You're running this place until the others get back."

"_Joy_."

"You don't want to?"

He snorts. "Want to? I never wanted to be in charge of anything! I'm only in charge because, contrary to what you see get sent out into Naz'atar, Neri, most of my people were wiped out years ago—including the King, mind you! They needed someone to lead them, someone who had no interest in pushing papers and putting up all the red tape that got burned in all the slaughtering."

(It's with a little wonder and much confusion as to how hard, how fast, the alcohol hits. If Lor'themar remembers correctly, it hadn't even been over an hour since he plucked a bottle from its crate, poured the whole thing into the biggest stein he could get hold of, and plunked himself down by the fire, his back to the Honorbound and his Adam's apple bobbing like a buoy during a freak storm. It's even more astounding Neri figured it was best to humor him and play along with him, because nothing's more fun than playing a game of 'jumping from one mundane topic to another that's so obviously, randomly, depressingly different') "...So that someone was you."

"Somebody had to take control. Ten percent of elves may seem like a lot, Neri. But it's not. There was so much disarray." He takes a sip. "We had to do so much just to survive. Some of them didn't stay." He looks at her. ("I think you scared her, sir," Oculeth will tell him, after his stomach has finally decided to stop folding in on itself. "Stars know you'll have all eyes on you as soon as cross through and step on wet land.") "They call themselves Quel'dorei still; they're the elves with the blue eyes. They are with the Alliance, helping the ankoan."

"Oh," Neri says. "I'm sorry. They musta had a good reason."

Lor'themar makes a noncommittal sound, glances back into the mug again. It's getting low. He wonders if any of the grunts can put in a work order or two to send some crates of this stuff over to Dazar'alor. It's so much more...flavorful. He never realized how tasteless the wines and spritzers back home were.

"It's just like now, you know," he continues, as if he hadn't just indulged in a moment of silence that had Neri shuffling her feet. "Once again, after a couple years come and go with little fanfare—other than the massive demonic invasion that swept over the planet that ended up with a Titan-sized sword plunged right into it, that is—the Horde, my people, have come to another crossroads. A fork in the road with the no hidden, off-beat path! Or maybe it's the same one. I don't know." He shrugs, stumbles, catches himself before he tips ass over kettle and loses all function in his limbs. "I bet it doesn't look that way to you, does it, Neri?"

"You guys seem to get along pretty well."

"So it does. But look around you for a moment. Take a good, long, look!" He booms loudly and gestures around the camp with a sweep of the arm holding the liquor that goes too wide and almost sends him sprawling again. "Look, Neri! Tell me what you see."

Neri looks over her shoulder, twists around with her back to Lor'themar so she can properly survey her surroundings. "I see people. Mine and yours."

"'S not what I mean. _What_ do you see? What kinds of people?"

She turns in a circle. "I see orcs and trolls, and tauren and elves, the goblins and the kelfins. Pandaren, too."

"What's missing?"

Neri frowns when she comes round to face him. "Well. Other than that quartermaster over there," and she tips her head behind her, where Violet Shadowmend is chatting it up with High Warlord Volrath and Voidbinder Zorlan, "I don't see any Forsaken."

"Bingo! We have a winner!" Lor'themar gives her a big, winning grin. "And why do you suppose that is?"

"Well. I don't know, sir. Could be they're on the mainland fighting the naga. Maybe they're in the capital keepin' an eye on things while you're all here."

"Why, yes, Neri," Lor'themar says. "Yes, they are. And so much more. But it's not just the naga the Forsaken are fighting, or the Queen they are keeping an eye on. It's the Alliance they watch and clash with." He smiles bitterly, fastens his fingers on the mug in a bright, white-knuckled grip. "It's the Horde they're watching and fighting, too."

"What?"

His lips pull down in a sour, mulish frown. "Didn't you hear me?" He leans forward, one arm resting on his knee to keep him propped up. "I said, the Forsaken are _rebelling_. The Horde is _tearing itself apart_. For the _second time_, need I remind you, because the first time under a racist, dickhead tyrant with dreams of a one-world ethnocracy wasn't bad enough."

"What are you talking about?"

"You've spent all your life beneath the waves. A lot has happened on the surface." Lor'themar harrumphs, or maybe grumbles, it's a very indecipherable noise his throat makes. "Maybe I'll tell you someday, if I'm still alive, Light willing."

"You're goin' to still be alive," Neri says adamantly. "We've got you, the Unshackled, the Alliance, the ankoan, and everyone that's been threatened and abused by Azshara. When we storm that palace, she won't know what'll hit her."

Lor'themar snorts. "Azshara should be the least of your concerns. Do you remember when you said you knew the bad guys pretty well and could tell them apart? Remember when you said that someday you won't have to call yourself Unshackled anymore? Be honest with me, Neri: do you believe you'll be free someday? Do you think everything's going to change as soon as Azshara's out the door?"

Neri stares at him, hard. "…Yeah. Yeah I do."

He smiles. "That's where you're wrong." He sits upright, wobbles, stays straight. "So very wrong."

"How?" Neri asks, brow kneaded. "How am I wrong?"

"How?" Lor'themar parrots. "_How?_" He raps the mug hard on the log; a couple drops come flying out into the air. He pays no heed to them. "Because you're alive, that's why! Sylvanas is Warchief of the Horde, and the Warchief's law is absolute above all else; if the Warchief tells you to jump, you don't ask how high, you do it. If the Warchief tells you to attack your enemy in a certain formation and with a certain goal in mind, you don't ask if it's for the greater good, you're going to do it.

"And if she tells you you're going to keep serving her even in death, and you say 'no ma'am, it ain't gonna happen'...guess what? Like it or not, you're _going to do it_. The Warchief doesn't care about feelings and emotional appeals. To her, you're not just a soldier of the Horde. You're a tool. An arrow in her quiver to be spent and picked up off the ground again and again and again—until you break. And if you break, she'll find a use for what can be salvaged." He lifts the liquor to his lips, takes a long pull from it until he drains it dry, gasps for breath when he lets go. "That's just the way she is now. No care in the world for anyone but herself; not even the Forsaken themselves are safe from her." He sniffs. "Ungrateful bitch," he mumbles. "It's as if death wasn't enough for Garrosh; his spirit didn't cause enough death and destruction and iron production in life so he had to go break time itself and possess _her_ of all people!"

"I can hear you," Neri says, a little awkwardly. "You know that...right? I'm, like, standing right here."

"So what?" he grouses. _Sho-wuh,_ is what it actually sounds like. In fact, every other word is beginning to blend and meld together now. "'S not like my opinion really matters. Sometimes people die when they speak up. Sometimes they get killed." He bursts into a stream of giggles, which cut off a few seconds later from an abrupt hiccup. "People don't care. The Light doesn't care. The Void doesn't care. If the Titans weren't holed up with the Dark Titan and the Betrayer a galaxy far, far away, I doubt they'd give a rat's ass, either. Because guess what? They're safe—from us. It's not their problem anymore. If they were to ever step foot on this planet, why, I'd rather be dead than butchered beyond any sort of recognition! Except I can't even be granted that much reprieve, because I _know_ Sylvanas Windrunner, Neri. I _know_ the Banshee Queen. Just ask the night elves she set on fire! She killed them...and they're _working_ for her! Not the Horde—her! She wasn't content with having one lapdog acting like he's her personal cocksleeve. No! She needed an army of mindless sheep to be corralled, too! Her very own, grade-A Scourge, and everyone else is too stupid to get off their asses and do somethin' about it!" _Sum'fin__k_, it comes out, and later, when Lor'themar's pressing his face as far as it can go into his pillow to block out all vestiges of illumination from lighting his brain on fire, he will hear Oculeth inform him (rather muffled at that) that Neri had told him that Lor'themar had been shouting, gesticulating wildly, had all but pitched his mug as hard as he could like a goblin pigskin that had been the winning Hail Gallywix at the championship footbomb game into the ground (and didn't blow up on the spot) and fumbled about in that idiot two-step dance everyone from all walks of life take on when they've plunged headfirst into that inebriated paradise. "Do you get it, Neri? _Do you?_"

She had backed away from him then; that much Lor'themar remembers. He also remembers the bewilderment on her face as she took him in: slurring like a Southsea pirate, with the hunched back of a Darkspear troll, the green in his eye dim. Maybe his ponytail got loose from its band and stuck all over his face and got tangled up around his shoulders. Perhaps he stank worse than a sea giant; he couldn't recall how much proof was in that liquor. But now, in his bedroom, he allows the thread of guilt to worm through the wreckage of his gut as he lets the scene play out in his mind, tries to collect the pieces off the ground and paste them back together in as complete an image the hangover will allow him.

Confusion, mostly. Fear, too. But Neri didn't run. She simply backpedaled, tried to avoid getting hit by his flailing arms. There were people looking at him, shocked. They had always known him, seen him, as an elf who had his head screwed on tight, who was the most composed of the Silvermoon Council, who never got involved in something unless it directly affected the sin'dorei (and, eventually, the nightborne) first and foremost. The only time they had ever seen Lor'themar Theron show anything else that wasn't passive neutrality and cool detachment was way back on the Isle of Thunder, where he loudly and proudly proclaimed that being on the battlefield was so much better than sitting at a desk riffling through papers that go through the IN and OUT bins just as soon as he's skimmed and marked them with a big fat red stamp of approval or disapproval. They didn't know what to do. He was sure they knew where Thalyssra and Oculeth were at, but he could bet on his other eye they were just as in the dark as he was as to where the flying hell Nathanos was. He was also sure that if someone were to locate Blightcaller, he'd simply blow them off and tell them to focus on busting down Azshara's door while he did...something...with that cursed blade of his.

They simply stood there, too stupid to get off their asses to do something.

(Lor'themar snorts, groans at the spike of pain nailing the base of his neck, and buries deeper into the pillow. Stomach roiling but the acid doesn't rise to his throat anymore; only the aftertaste remains. There's a feather-light pat on his shoulder and the sensation of silk gliding up and down his back in soft, soothing circles.)

He realizes he's deviating away from the memory, gets back on track and studies the emotion on Neri's face. Confusion and fear and—worry. She's worried. For him? For herself? For what he might do? He couldn't say even if Oculeth asked him. But she swallows thickly, takes a breath, stands straight, and looks him dead in the eye. "No," she tells him. "No, I don't get you. Because I don't know Sylvanas like you do. I can't take your word for it because I've never met her. I can't say if she's like this Garrosh fellow."

"Fucking _figures_," Lor'themar growls. Almost spits through the scowl twisting his lips. "I bet you're the type o' person that wants to 'wait and see' when everyone else tells you it'll be ring around the rosey in Orgrimmar again!"

"I wasn't there in Orgrimmar, obviously, and I wasn't there when everything you said happened went down before the seas parted-"

"Just take my word for it, Neri. If you don't wanna be a shambling zombie, you'll stay right here, all nice and dry, in Newhome. I called this shit months ago! You're plugging your ears and singing a nice little ditty to tune your fears out!"

"-but," Neri gets in, cool and sweet as the fauna around them, "I do know one thing. I know something everyone else does."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"War is hell. It's not pretty. It ain't supposed to be. War's about dominating and surviving, and if you want to survive you'll do anything to stay alive. I don't know why you guys are fighting the Alliance let alone fighting each other. Right now I really don't care who's right or who's wrong. But someday my people and I aren't gonna be Unshackled anymore. We're gonna be on the surface, and when that happens I'll decide for myself what I should and shouldn't believe and go from there." She steps forward and prods him square in the crotch with a finger.

Lor'themar sneers, ears folding back. He doesn't remember what he was thinking in that moment. He knew he was about to do something, getting ready for it, but it doesn't happen. There are footsteps punching out from the cave, and then there's Atolia coming at him like a tidal wave, staff in hand, Poen right behind her. "I can hear you all the way from the back of the cave, big guy! You're scarin' people!" she snaps, sniffs, and makes a face. "Pah! Tides above! You smell like dead snapdragon!"

"That's just the ambrosia from the gods, baby!" he crows. "Want some?" He leers, and points below his belt line with a lopsided grin. "I can guarantee you..._this_ tastes better than human potential."

Atolia makes a disgusted sound. "Okay, no. No. You're done here today."

"'S never over when there are still good people out there in need of assassinating-!"

"Poen, go find a scout and get Oculeth," Atolia says to the kelfin, who nods and goes up the path out of Newhome. Her eyes never leave Lor'themar. "Tell him he needs ta come back and hold down the fort til Thal's done in Zin-Azshari. If he asks, tell her Mad-Eye Moody here's out of his freaking gourd from...whatever the hell he got a hold of. And you," she says, jabbing at his crotch with a very sharp, very pointy fingernail, "you're goin' home. I don't trust you."

Lor'themar's face lights up with a joy that's distinctly, blindingly feral "When you don't trust others, it means things aren't going your way!"

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. Come on, let's go." Atolia takes his hand and gives it a tug.

Lor'themar yanks it back. "You're not m' Warchief, Neri!"

"I'm Atolia, brother."

"Fuck you, you all look the same!"

"I guess we all do when we look at things at face value. Or we're insane in the membrane."

"We're all monsters here, baby! Monsters and demons and caricatures without two brain cells to rub together! But let me tell, boys and girls! None of us are more monstrous than Sylvanas Windrunner! Chief of Warchiefs! Queen of Banshee Queens! She makes a killing off gassing her own troops, setting elves on fire, twirling her invisible mustache and munching on live puppies for extra evil nutrients! She's the richest motherfucker on Azeroth, yes she is!"

"Atolia," Neri says, discreet and nervous.

Atolia raises a hand and eases her off to the side. Then she reaches out and holds up her hand to Lor'themar. "Just come with me. Portal's right over there. Come on. I'll take you home."

"I'm fine," Lor'themar slurs, sways. Licks his lips. "I just had one"-and here he raises a crooked index finger in the air-"_one_...bottle. Hic!"

"Bro, look at you. You're a mess. You're gonna suffer for this later."

"I said I'm _fine, goddammit! _I'M THE FUCKING REGENT-LORD OF QUEL'THALAS-"

"Don't make this more difficult as it is, man. You gotta go, no ifs and or buts."

"_Make me!_" he screams, getting into her face, spittle flying every which way. "Make me! I'll put you in the ground, just like Sylvanas!"

Atolia stares at him. Lor'themar stares back, huffing and puffing; drool slides down from one corner of his chapped lips. No one in the camp speaks. They watch, holding their breath.

Then Atolia smiles and tosses her head back, snickering. "Okay."

* * *

"What did I do?" Lor'themar asks Oculeth.

"Well from what Neri tells me: not much at all. All you did was take three steps and you were done for."

"Done for?"

"Why yes. Atolia gave you the ole slip-up and cracked you behind the knees. You went down like a direhorn and hit your head." A pause. "Neri was worried you died. She wanted to tend to your wounds, but Volrath told her it was better if you went home to get some rest. So the Honorbound dragged you through the portal networks and brought you here. I believe Thalyssra is helping him."

Lor'themar grunts, shifts his arms a bit from where they're folded underneath the pillow. They are numb with the fire of pins and needles.

"How do you feel, Lor'themar?"

"Like shit." Absolutely, _astoundingly_ like dog shit...but his stomach isn't hurting as badly now, compared to the skull-fucking that's power drilling holes in fits and bursts and the Durotar-levels of barren wasteland his throat is feeling. He hesitates to pick his head up and move, lest the sun decides to sear his retinas a new one and leave him further incapacitated for—how long was he out for, before he awoke to his stomach giving up the ghost? Ah, twenty-six hours and counting.

(Belore, if one bottle of liquor alone had that much proof in it….)

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing. 'S not your fault."

"I know. It's just that...I didn't realize how bad things have been for you." A rustle of silks. "You've known the Warchief for a long time, yes?"

"Mmm. I've known her since we were children. Our families were well-acquainted with each other; everyone's families were, in the old days. We were in the same grade together, in the Farstrider Academy." Lor'themar risks a chance and lifts his head enough to lay his face on one side. Lucky for him, there is barely any light coming through. The curtains are drawn tight against the blinds. The room is mired in shadow.

"She's not the same," Lor'themar says. "Hasn't been since Arthas cut through the gates. No," he adds, and quells the need to shake his head. "Since Icecrown."

"Sir?"

"I have known Sylvanas to be ruthless. Cruel, even...but never with my own eye have I seen her stoop so low as to set the world on fire and all their sight, and all the sight of the Horde itself, on her. Braying for blood, justice, vengeance; her head on a pike, her soul purged by the Light or consumed by the Shadow. No one will rest until she's dead or we die with her. Mayhaps the Alliance will put us in camps, just like they did to the orcs long ago."

"C-Camps?"

"Yes. Camps. Because sometimes death is too good a punishment for wicked people like us."

"Wicked?" Oculeth sniffs contentiously. "The Horde may be brutish, and selfish, but I have yet to see anyone act evil for the sake of it! Noble though they may be, you are nowhere near the stiflingly stagnant sort as the Alliance portrays itself to be. Why do you suppose I'm here, Lor'themar? Under their banner, we would not be able to grow from beyond the barrier we put ourselves in. Thalyssra did not up and decide to join the Horde simply because Tyrande was mean; were we to be within her yoke, we would never stop having the feeling of having eyes always following our every move. We are free people, that we are, and if we are free then we have the means to do both right and wrong. A deed is only considered right or wrong after it is committed."

"Genocide is wrong," Lor'themar says. "Plaguing your own troops, and raising them into mindless husks, in a bid to stop the enemy assailing your capital is wrong. Reanimating a man dead many years under the sea, whose body was preserved by the touch of dragonfire, and torturing him so that he may be used as a weapon against his own family is wrong."

"Lor'themar, the ren'dorei have done the same thing to the Zandalari's favored ravasaurs. They are family to them."

"Those were mere puppets, Oculeth. They did not have their free will robbed like Derek was going to have, but that doesn't make it any less right."

"No. But it's war. They want to live. _I_ want to live. Isn't that why we're all fighting? The world is dying and we're all too busy playing tug of war with its very own lifeblood trying to secure it and come out on top."

"At the end of the day, everyone is an animal, and the fact of the matter that Azeroth may well and truly be beyond saving is driving us to give in to the madness and go out with a bang before the end."

"Or a whimper."

"Or a whimper," Lor'themar says solemnly. He picks idly at the sheets with his fingers. "We're monsters. Did you know that, Oculeth?"

A sigh. "I already told you. I'm not evil. I do not perceive myself as such. I do not even perceive the Horde evil, either."

"But we are, Oculeth. We're evil monsters because we are Horde. Actually, no. We're worse than that. We're demons. We are worse than the Burning Legion now with Sylvanas than we were with Vol'jin. We're simply a diluted brand of the Scourge."

"Vol'jin had a very short reign, didn't he?"

"If you can even call it that. He didn't warm the seat long enough for Sylvanas to get comfortable on. Tch, not that she'd _feel_ warmth, anyway. He didn't do much, either, outside of promoting the Speaker of the Horde to commander of the garrison forces established on Draenor. Ah, he'd also cleaned up the Underhold in Orgrimmar and opened it as a sanctuary for survivors during the Legion invasions...before the push into the Broken Isles." He picks at the sheet some more. "What are you trying to get at?"

"I'm saying that you don't know how Vol'jin would have turned out. He lasted only little more than a year before he died. That's not enough time to determine whether or not he would have upheld the Horde's ideals."

"He would have held onto them a lot tighter than the butchery Sylvanas is doing."

"I can imagine he would during peacetime. But war? Honor is as fleeting as a dream, Lor'themar; you'll be hard pressed to find someone who will commit such an act from the bottom of their hearts and _not_ a stab in the back. Ah, but one person's honor is one person's crime. Didn't you know that?"

"I'm Regent-Lord, Oculeth. I should know that. But Sylvanas is bringing us back to the start all over again. She is digging her heels in and won't stop throwing our bodies into the meat grinder until either the Alliance or the world is destroyed. Does that sound honorable to you? Does Sylvanas sound like a woman who represents the body and soul of the Horde?"

"Well, she is called Warchief-"

"Don't even fucking start with me, Oculeth," Lor'themar hisses. "Don't get me going."

"I'm just saying-"

"I know what you're saying, and you're wrong." Lor'themar bites the inside of his cheek, pushes down the bile of frustration and rage that's no longer fueled by alcohol to take over him. Focuses on keeping his mouth firmly shut and breathes through his nostrils until time enough has passed and he reasserts himself. "You're wrong," he says, calmly now. "Sylvanas is not Warchief. Whatever force is at play here whispered lies in Vol'jin's ear as he lay on his deathbed and installed her on the throne instead. She is a pretender. She is illegitimate. She is not a Warchief. She's become her own worst enemy, an embodiment of all the sins the Old Horde and Garrosh's Horde and the Lich King's Scourge rolled into one insignificant, vile sack of meat and bones bound by black magic that can be undone, and perhaps still can be undone, by a single, unsuspecting bullet to the brain. And she knows this, Oculeth. She _knows_ this and does not care. And I believe no one, for all we say we are to going to kowtow to the Alliance for the second time in a row, cares enough to do it themselves. This is our problem. We should have done something sooner; there is no need for the Alliance to get involved. But here we are now, you and I. She's had her own people slaughtered at the Gathering, she's massacred innocent people in Teldrassil that have nothing to do with our squabbles, she's executed Zelling and imprisoned Baine for speaking out, and was going to use an Alliance hero as a candidate for familicide – and what have we done, Oculeth? What have we accomplished? We just stood there with our thumbs up our asses and blindly followed like lemmings over a cliff." He stares at his hand, white and scarred. There are calluses on the sides of his fingers. The nails are long, chipped, dirtied. It is empty. "It's a long fall, from what we are supposed to be."

"Lor'themar…."

"I want to die sometimes," he says, and takes this chance to roll onto his back. Arm thrown over his eyes so the light doesn't exacerbate the pain that's throbbing dully in his temples and the bridge of his nose, pressing his knuckles as hard as he can to his eyes so he can only see the darkness. "I do not feel like I'm in control of myself anymore. As though there is a power greater than the Titans, greater than the Light and the Void, that is pulling at my strings, and there is nothing I can do to sever them and be free of the hand that guides me. It seems anything I do, no matter how big or small the cause and effect, is wrong, and whatever I do will result in the whole world turning against me simply because I am doing what I perceive to be right and moral and just. I cannot win against fate. I do not expect to, even if the odds were in my favor. Sometimes, I think, it would be better if I were to die and be left alone. Untouched. Unbothered. Death would be the greatest comfort I would ever know…but I can't even have that. I cannot have it so long as Sylvanas is Warchief, and what I might do in undeath as I have done in the past and will do in the future will only become more pronounced the longer I live. There is just no escape. I am like those ravasaurs. I am but a mere puppet, and yet I still want death." He swallows thickly. It feels like there's a ball in his throat. "I want it."

Quiet. The air is still. Outside, he can discern the chirping of birds, the slight rustle of trees as a breeze winds its way through them. No other voice, if there are any prowling the Court of the Sun, are blocked, silenced, by the closed door and the wards that are placed upon it.

"No," Oculeth says quietly. "No, you don't."

"I want to be _free_," Lor'themar persists. "I don't want this. I don't want to do any of this all over again."

"No one does, and I don't want to go through what we're going through right now. But what's done is done; we've made our choices, and we're still going to make choices, right or wrong. To say we are not in control of ourselves denotes the possibility that we do not have free will. Yet I say these words to you now because I _want_ to. I am in charge of myself no matter how badly these so-called odds are stacked against me. I am the author of my own destiny, just as you are the author of your own, and everyone else is the author of theirs. We write them; not the Titans, not the Light, the Void—no one. Whatever comes of our choices will happen regardless of whether or not we like the results. Whatever happens, Lor'themar, happens. We must simply make the best of it, from all sides of the die."

"Even if I were to tell you I have strongly considered turning to the Alliance for aid? That I am too weak to stand against Sylvanas by myself and must bend the knee to my enemy once more so that I may live to see another day?"

"Yes. Even that. It's your decision to make, I do not lead the sin'dorei; I'm just a telemancer. If you feel that you must turn to the Alliance for assistance, then by all means do so. It doesn't make you weak."

"No. It makes me a coward."

"It does not."

"I did it once before. I don't want to do it again."

"You are not infallible. If you were, then no one would be able to tolerate you."

"I could the weakest person in the world and still be hated."

"Who cares? Who cares what those kinds of people have to say?"

"I care because I intend to address not only my council but my people as well. Sylvanas may be a criminal, but she is—was—a war hero. She is still beloved, even if that love can sometimes be blind and nigh fanatical." Lor'themar spreads his fingers barely a quarter of an inch, squints up at the ceiling through the weak sunlight failing to filter through the window. "Those kinds of people that hold onto that love like that…they will not go quietly."

"You won't know until you tell them."

"I don't think I don't know, I _know_ so." He sighs. "What a mess. What an absolute, soul-crushing mess. If this war were a book, I'd set it on fire. And then myself for thinking it'd be great to sink that much time into it."

"Cease that kind of talk, Lor'themar. What kind of person would you be if you performed self-immolation? You would never get to read any upcoming stories in the works if you were to do that! You could just simply close the book and pick up another one."

"Were I a reader and not a leader; and if I were a reader, I'd maybe go through the whole damn five-step process all over again until I'm satisfied with the way things are going."

"You're banking on a coin toss. Luck is a fickle mistress."

"Perhaps, but at least if I were to find such a story that would captivate my attention it would mean my trust has not been betrayed and I can rely on that author, or those authors, to deliver a plotline I would be invested to follow in until-"

"Until things don't go your way even if you present your thoughts to the author in the most well-mannered, constructive tone you can manage. Right?"

Lor'themar says nothing.

Another sigh, quieter, less tired. "Things will get better," Oculeth says. "At least, that is what I should like to hope. But even in the end, and after the end, hope is the only thing I can hold onto. It's all I can do, really. I must see things through and hope that everything will turn out for the best." Silence punctuates the air, and there's the sound of retreating footsteps. Lor'themar anticipates the sound of undone chains and the click of the door being unlocked and open to come.

A chair scrapes across the floor.

"What are you doing?" Lor'themar asks.

"Why, I'm going to keep sentinel. Tell me, how do you feel right now?"

"Still like shit."

"Of course you would. That was liquor enchanted by and drunk by Orgrimmar's finest shaman and warriors, designed and brewed to turn off your cognitive functions and boost your adrenaline and dopamine facilitators to ridiculous heights. It's a good thing you only drank that one bottle; any more and you'd have probably died! There's enough alcohol proof in there to kill a gronn."

Lor'themar groans. "So I'm going to get sick again?"

"Hmm...you might. It's hard to say, but we'll find out soon enough. Oh, don't worry! This scrubber just got off the press lines right out of Suramar! It'll take a lot more than projectile bodily fluids and potential biohazards before it needs to be filtered and required a self-wash-rinse cycle! And…."

"And?"

"And...I am going to stay right here. For the rest of the night and perhaps all of tomorrow. However long it takes, mind," Oculeth concludes, and Lor'themar's ears perk up at the sound of the telemancer sitting down. "Mainly to oversee the detoxification your body will undergo, since reports of non-orc users imbibing in this particular elixir are undocumented. But mostly to make sure you don't do anything foolish the minute I have my back turned." There's the pressure of a hand lighting on his arm, soft and ephemeral. "We're not going back to Nazjatar until I know for certain you are sound enough to lead us."

"You'll be apt to wait a long, long, _long_ time then," Lor'themar quips.

"I am more than willing to ride out the apocalypse and what lies beyond it if it means I can save one person from his own daemons." Fingers close over his hand. "You have helped us once, Lor'themar. Allow me to repay the favor."

Lor'themar presses his lips together, swallows around a dry throat that has nothing to do with the earlier vomiting. That lump, however, is still there, thicker and heavier than before that it feels it would weigh his chest down and leave him breathless. He closes his fingers into a fist and jabs his knuckles against his eye. He doesn't allow himself to rub his nose, which is hot and stinging.

Oculeth says nothing.

He says not much else through the rest of the day and well past the witching hour, except to know if Lor'themar is feeling any better. His mood waxes and wanes. Other than a few other instances in which his stomach rebels and comes out south instead of north, and his bladder drains so much he could wager he'd fill up the Loch and ask for a pretty sum from the dwarves, he manages to keep down the Winterspring water and the small plates of food the servants bring him. His head stops pounding some hours later, easing to a dull, low tide ebb with the help of tinctures made from crushed evermoss and jademoon leaves (Oculeth will not let him have the kafa'kota; "I'd rather you not bounce off the walls, sire! Stars forbid you lose control of your bowels before and _after_ the crash.")

They sleep soundly into the night. He does not dream.

The next day is spent keeping tabs on Lor'themar. He's feeling a lot better than he did the day before, although he's lethargic from oversleep and weak due to his meager pecking at his meals. Although his stomach grumbles incessantly, he doesn't take chances. Oculeth brings in a doctor to check his vitals, to which the man tells them after a few minutes of questioning Lor'themar and fiddling with his medical instruments that Lor'themar should spend today—and possibly the next, depending on how he feels—recuperating before returning to Newhome. He should also, the doctor emphasized with a stern expression, avoid that stash of battle liquor at all costs. Consumable as it is for all races, there's a reason why it's marked, in BIG, **BOLD**, _**BLACK**_ letters WARNING! DO NOT DRINK ORCS ONLY (and, in very small letters, a disclaimer stating that the Bilgewater Cartel is not liable for any and all bodily harm—self-inflicted or otherwise—and adverse side effects that may occur as a result of a non-orc warrior or shaman (or anyone in particular) ingesting the WARMONGER'S GLORY 626). Lor'themar responds in a voice that doesn't betray his meekness that he knows better and won't even think twice to make a second attempt at drowning his sorrows in a potion that will most likely kill him after the second bottle.

(Unless Atolia beats him to it first. The doctor noted the blackened bruises behind his kneecaps and the lump on his head and instructed him to be more careful of his steps and, whatever foolhardy notions of farstrider dominance stew in the dark corners of his thoughts, his head. Lor'themar doesn't have the heart to admit the truth that he had his ass handed to him by someone less than half his height.)

He's glad that the others are scattered all over Azeroth to catch word of what he did. Not even Halduron, who's been stationed on the panhandle between Andorhal and Chillwind Camp assisting the Forsaken in keeping the Wildhammer and the Quel'Danil entrenched behind their passage, has been made aware. Oculeth, by Lor'themar's request, has told all the couriers to keep any incoming and outgoing reports strictly professional; their Regent-Lord has no need to waste time on insistent questions about his health (and his low tolerance).

Two days later, Oculeth gets a rudimentary portal to Newhome set up after finagling with the leylines that course underneath Eversong. Volrath and his battlemasters are there, directing three ranks of troops to shore up defenses on their side of the Spears of Azshara as they, he presumes, anticipate an attack from either the naga or Alliance shocktroopers searching for a way into the base. Thalyssra is there, too, and she's immediately upon Lor'themar, asking of his well-being. He is fine, he tells her. He's had alcohol that floors him worse than the WARBRINGER'S GLORY (no, he hasn't, and Thalyssra's not laughing so he drops it and assures her that, really, he's fine). When it seems like she's convinced she relays to him what's happened in his absence. Which is: not much, but both factions are making progress on clearing the way to the Eternal Palace. The Speaker went out into the field with Poen today, and she is not expecting them back until later tonight. Nathanos is still doing his own thing, but he asked of Lor'themar's whereabouts a couple days back. He had grinned, chuckled, made some sort of comment about being a lightweight and 'easy pickings'. Then he left, Xal'atath in tow. Back to where, none could say. (Lor'themar didn't care.)

(Baine and Saurfang are still in hiding, she will tell him later that evening, when the fires are down to their embers and the night watch crew is rotating the day shift out. Jaina wishes to speak with him, but Greymane hasn't been cooperative; he is not letting up with sending 7th Legion to stalk the shadows and note the Horde's movements. There is news she wishes to pass along. Lor'themar tells Thalyssra that she can try to pass the message along, but whatever it is will have to wait until Azshara—and, if they're extremely lucky, providing everyone's not dead and Azeroth one big, purple ball of tentacles, N'Zoth—are dealt with. "They can afford to stand around a little longer," he says, and if Thalyssra can hear the bitterness in his voice she doesn't comment.)

He stands on the edge of the precipice overlooking the sloping hills of the Coral Forest and, sprawling further away, the Az'shari Terrace and Kal'methir, watching the bloatrays interchanging formations in their flight. One huge ray, red like magma with a belly flecked with green and blue spots, utters a deep, whale-like warble and makes a slow, undulating turn to the north, toward the Zanj'ir Terrace.

Even from here, he can see Azshara's palace in all its marbled, narcissistic glory.

Sand scuffs to his left. Lor'themar glances in that direction.

"Hey," says Neri.

"Hey," says Lor'themar.

They gaze upon the land, ancient, broken, dry for the first time in history. A chill breeze stirs the fronds hanging from the towering coral trees. Salt stings their eyes, chaps their lips and nostrils. The sun rises in the east, above the wall of water. From the back of Newhome, Atolia hollers for people to come and get breakfast. There's plenty of kakavia to go around, more than enough for thirds or fourths to dunk their bread in.

"How ya feelin'?" she asks him.

"I'm...better."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Oculeth took care of me. Made sure I ate and drank."

"Oh. That's good. Um. How're your legs? And your head?"

"They will heal. They don't hurt as much anymore, although I may be walking a bit slower than usual until the bruises go away."

"That's good. I'm glad you're okay."

"Mmm." He scratches the back of his head. "Um. Listen. Neri. About the other day-"

"It's okay, Lor. You don't have to apologize."

"No. I shouldn't have drank. That...That's not how I am. _Who_ I am."

"Yeah. I know. Stuff like that does that to ya. I know that's not how you really are."

"But…still. I am sorry, Neri. I...I should not have had to vent my misgivings so-"

"Easily?"

"Yes. That."

"Lor, venting isn't supposed to be easy. It's kinda like fighting your way through a swarm of naga packed in all together like a wall. You have to bust your way through before you start to feel better. You just had a, a, a few leaks in the dam come loose, and the alcohol just, you know." She toes the sand. "Maybe it had to come out."

"Not like that."

"No. Maybe not. But at least you said something."

"I said a lot of things, Neri. I said a lot of things I shouldn't have."

"There's no sense in keeping everythin' bottled up, man. We all have a breaking point. And when that happens…well, I've never heard of a fallout that wasn't messy."

Lor'themar snorts softly. "I've seen worse."

"You've seen worse so far. Things have to get worse before they get better."

"They may not get better at all. Not unless you do something."

"Sometimes doing something makes things worse. You ever stop and think about that?" Neri asks gently. She returns her attention to the horizon. "Sometimes not doing anything is the best choice you can make. Sometimes not doing anything might be the worst decision. I couldn't tell ya, but that doesn't make you any less of a person. You just have to do what you think is right. You can't please everyone."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"What will you do? After all this." Lor'themar waves his arm out in front of him.

Neri shrugs. "Dunno. I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Right now I just want to focus on giving Azshara and her goons a damn good walloping, know what I'm saying? It's been a long time coming. After that? Who knows, but I'm sure the folks and I will figure something out. Think when I've got my affairs in order I want to hit up the mainland and try out all these weird foods you guys have. They sound kinda fun."

Lor'themar gives her a curious look. "You're taking this awfully swell. Aren't you-"

"Mad? Nah, Lor. How can I be? You've got a lot going on and there's nothing I can do to make them easier for you except lend an ear and give you my opinion. What you do with that is entirely up to you. There's no telling what'll happen afterwards."

"No," Lor'themar says. "No, it won't. All I can do, all anyone can do, is hope for the best."

"Yeah. And," Neri bites her bottom lip, lost in thought, "I want to believe...that I'm not being a fool."

"A fool?"

"A fool for thinking that your Warchief isn't as...what's the word I'm looking for...ruthless as you're making her out to be. That maybe that even though her actions are harsh and downright evil, she's doing all of that to protect the Horde. I don't know. I've never met her. I've never seen her in action like you have." She shrugs again. "I mean, when I think about it, I don't really know _what_ to feel. I still want to believe."

"Then that's what you should do. You're not hurting anyone. Not like I did."

"Hey, man, you didn't hurt me, and you most certainly didn't hurt anyone else!" Neri says, putting her hands on her waist and jutting a hip out for emphasis.

"It doesn't feel that way."

"It's over and done with, Lor. You just gotta own up to it. That's apology enough." She meets his gaze, just as he meets hers in return, and he can see what lies beneath. It's the same kind of expression Atolia wore days ago, only softer, quieter, reposed: no more room for argument, not an inch to be given or taken.

He feels…almost humbled.

"Come on," Neri says, and starts walking toward the cave, beckoning Lor'themar with a wave. "Breakfast's ready. Atolia makes some pretty kickin' kakavia. Let's get some before the murlocs wise up and get a hold of it."

_I don't feel hungry,_ Lor'themar wants to tell her, but the growling of his stomach speaks otherwise. He follows her, several steps behind. He focuses straight ahead, ignoring the wondering faces of the Honorbound that turn his way.

His ears twitch.

"Look, there goes Mad-Eye Moody-"

"Total lightweight-"

"Wonder who'll tickle his shit in next-"

"Poor bastard, I'd hate to be the shmuck that gets him going-"

"Who knows, he'll probably take off, too, like a little bitch, then we'll get shit on even more-"

"It must suck being him right now-"

There's a long line circling round the chamber for soup and bread, and what looks like kelpberries glazed with some crystal, sparkling syrup. One of the kelfins passes Lor'themar a tray with an empty bowl in the middle and utensils wrapped in hemp twine next to it; he tells him to mind his hands, the soup is piping hot, so don't drop it. Lor'themar takes it and for the next several minutes trudges slowly closer to the pot where Slen Darkroe's filling bowl after bowl with steaming kakavia.

"Here you go, Moody. Hold it tight," Slen says, easing the bowl onto the tray.

"Thanks," Lor'themar mumbles, and takes his breakfast of soup, bread, and kelpberries off the flat rock for the next person to step up. He stops in the very center, right next to the big calling conch that announces the battle plans for the day, the tips of his boots touching the water dripping from stalagmites from a dark ceiling that's almost imperceptible.

He scans the room. Troops, kelfin, makrura, sea giants and murlocs sit together in their own little cliques: big ones, small ones, with each other or intermingled with clashing aesthetics. Fires burn low in the darker corners. Pots boil and spew steam, exuding meat, potatoes, vegetables. One group, consisting of pandaren and Zandalari, are turning spitted corn and flipping sliced apples and pineapples on a mangal.

"Gonna sit down?" Neri asks, a few feet off to his left. "Better grab a spot, or you'll get stuck sitting outside."

"I'm going," Lor'themar says, and starts walking. There's a place deeper into the cavern that dips into a serpentine nook, dark and spacious, set aside from the open clam shells the sea giants bed upon. There's a small, flat boulder with a schwenker tripod next to it. His feet carry him in that direction.

Barely anyone regards him. Those that do keep their heads down, their lips moving, their words jumbled. They grab their knives and forks and eat, pick up their cups and steins and tip them back. He catches Oculeth's eye, motions where he's going. From his place in the land Oculeth motions the other way to a spot closer to the entrance. Lor'themar shakes his head, walks away from him. He only catches a glimpse of a worried frown.

As he's about to the corner and tread the slope, Lor'themar stops.

Several large crates of dark wood, painted with the red sigil of the Horde, sit in a pile against the damp wall. The lid of the one closest to him is jarred slightly open, showing four rows of squat, corked bottles in a deep green glass.

There are big, black letters sketched in heavy, bold script on the side.

Lor'themar stares at it.

He imagines prying the crate open and, with a bit of haggling from the vendors in Newhome proper and some Thalassian magic, stuffing all the bottles into enchanted tortollan scrolls and smuggling them through the portal to Dazar'alor's network in the Great Seal. He imagines calling for a meeting with Sylvanas, telling her it's an emergency, that he has reason to believe there are traitors all around her, guns at the back of her head and long poisoned blades pointed at her throat to shear her head off. Not Alliance spies, but Horde spies, separatists that are convinced her death will restore their honor, absolve them of their shame, and bring glory to a Horde that time forgot when Thrall departed from Orgrimmar to assist the Earthen Ring at the edges of the Maelstrom, that time erased when Garrosh snatched his father's whitewashed glory by the throat and dared to turn the world to hot, bloodstained iron, and that time ignored when Vol'jin sought to salvage what could be scavenged from the siege and rebuild only to collapse beneath the weight of a demonic blade and choked on the threads of his demise that the hands of fate held with their grasp. They had their eyes upon the val'kyr, and had their eyes on Nathanos, and they would move as one when the time was right; even the Speaker, whom Sylvanas lauded as much as she trusted Nathanos, was poised to lead the charge. There were so many assassins, so many malcontents and discontents that would wage the war to end all wars if it meant peace, a war on hypocrisy, a war on peace if it meant the return to their noble savagery and defiance against the boy-king who thought he could do no wrong, perceive no wrong, felt no wrong, and wielded a hand whose touch was light with justice and miracle and redemption. The Light embodied him, he embodied the Light. The Light would blind the Horde and see them stricken. They would be cast in shadow. They would not be free. They must come up with a plan. They must not be hasty. They must act, and they must act soon.

He imagines guzzling bottle after bottle after bottle, feeding the bear that sleeps, the moment before he convenes with the Banshee Queen and consider their options and finalize their plans. He imagines the warmth settling into his stomach, the buzz that would ring aloft in his ears, the blood bubbling in his veins. His nerves would jump. His fingers would flex. His mouth would salivate. His heart would hammer in his chest. The light would be too bright upon his sword and send a lance of strain to his good remaining eye. He would grasp it, shove it into its scabbard, and he would journey to the place they had agreed upon to meet and decide, once and for all, where the future of the Horde lay beyond the Alliance's utopian dream and the blood-soaked battlefields of Azeroth.

He imagines, then, the berserker rage taking over him, a parasitical fungi that had long since plunged its roots into his brain from whence he had indulged in that first, succulent sup. 'Embracing the inner troll,' the Zandalari would tease, and would that he balk at it, but this moment would be clear, it would be stained, it would be irreplaceable. The bear would wake, the bear would rise. He would yank his sword from its trapping and gut her like a fucking pig, oink oink oink, push her to the ground and chop chop chop at her head, right where the neck meets its shoulders, the Forsaken's greatest weak spot, because he's always been told the plague made it soft, made it so easy to break like a watermelon at a Midsummer party, if he struck it hard enough it would come apart, and then that pretty mouth of hers wouldn't be able to scream, wouldn't blast his eardrums off, wouldn't be able to turn her body to black mist and try to fly away like the fucking Headless Horseman after he's done torching another settlement for shits and giggles. She wouldn't stand a chance, for then he would put his hands on her and tear tear tear, rip rip rip, they would be soaked in thick strings of rotten, coagulated blood, sinew tangled between his fingers, gore stuck in the crevices of his nails and caking his arms up to his elbows. He would scream for all it was worth, scream until his throat went raw, damn her for all the ill she had wrought to the world, to the Horde, to the sin'dorei, to him. If there is a hell to be found in the Shadowlands, a hell reserved only for her, then by all that is holy and all that is good and all that there is some sliver of karmic retribution to be had in this ugly yet twisted universe that twinkled in the Great Dark Beyond he would hope, fervently, desperately hope, Sylvanas Windrunner would be sent there, alone, with the ghosts of her family and the ghosts of all the victims she had killed and the ghost of Arthas Menethil surrounding her as her audience held at bay by an invisible barrier and the specter of the dead and the damned as her judge that would read off every sin, every crime, every scorn, and every hurt, and suffer and break and be remade and be broken again ad infinitum for all eternity. He would be a hero, he would be a traitor. He would be remembered, he would be damned from memory. He would be Warchief, he would make Baine or Saurfang or Thrall Warchief, he would be given his own statue, his own plaque, his own celebratory parade. He would be blessed by the Sunwell, he would be blessed by Azeroth, he would refuse all medallions and gifts and praises, they would leave him alone, they would laugh and call him modest. They would love him, they would hate him. They would love and hate and be sad and relieved. He would finally have brought back hope, he would finally have brought back despair. He would have finally moved his feet and done something. He would finally have done something _right_ and not be _wrong_.

Then he recalls, in flashes, the fall of Silvermoon. The image of the banshee that bore her tear-streaked face and her armor and her grief-wracked voice. He recalls the moment where she stood upon the ramparts of the Windrunner Spire, facing south, toward Lordaeron, newly minted Ranger-General, the wind tossing her cape and caressing her long, golden forelocks from her forehead. He recalls the whip-thin girl at the Farstrider Academy, yet to fill in the body that would be sculpted with muscle and elven grace, watching her mother lead the cavalry out the gates toward troll lands, where the Amani were stirring trouble, and would watch her again as they brought back their decapitated heads, the bejeweled rings they wore on their tusks, the beads and necklaces made from the teeth of wolves and bears and lynxes that adorned their flesh, the crude toothed axes they carried in their paws.

He recalls the straw in her hair, the rivers and the stars in her eyes, the long sweep of her ears. Always watching, always listening.

He imagines the blood on his hands, the terror frozen on her face as an unfathomable darkness swallowed her whole and left her body to rot and blow away to ashes and dust on his palms and on his fingertips. Imagines the chains clapped on his wrists as Shaw stood by and his marines guarded him with polearms at his heart, the unrestrained rage as Nathanos charged right at him, the Horde flags burning, the King of Stormwind standing before him, Jaina Proudmoore appraising him with an expression that could be interpreted as pity, or maybe relief. Imagines Alleria and the ren'dorei marching toward Silvermoon, Turalyon and his lightforged draenei outshining their shadows, dashing blood across the flagstones-

Lor'themar swallows. He releases a shaky breath.

Faintly, the bloatray issues another call.

Gripping his tray as tight as he can, Lor'themar walks the rest of the way down the path and sets it on the rock. He wills the magic to his fingertips and sets the lumber and charcoal in the schwenker to spark and a small wisp of smoke arises. He places three large kelpberries on the board to roast.

Then he sits down, takes up his bowl, and scoops a spoonful of chunked fish, vegetable, and creamy broth into his mouth.


End file.
